Remarks by Tommy Waters
189 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 8 of 8
“Well, we don't want to call it a tax because then people aren't going to like it, right? Let's name it something else. You got any ideas? A levy of fees? Special assessment. Special assessment is better. Yeah. No, seriously. People are very, very sensitive to that word. But the people would know going into it because I think you said 25% of the landowners have to agree to the levy.”
“Okay. And then as far as how the City Council gets involved, the first step is the petition. Who drafts the petition? Is that drafted by the City or the consultant or the developer?”
“And the petition is, I guess, transmitted to the City Council? Probably through DPP.”
“we approve it preliminarily, right? And then the next step would be, yeah, right here, it says city council adopts a resolution of intention, the ROI, and then who drafts the ROI?”
“Okay, well typically it would be probably DPP or Budget and Fiscal Services for our approval that we could amend as we see fit. Or no? I mean, because in the ROI you specify what rate and apportionment of the tax and what it's gonna be used for, right? Whether it's a road, sewer, or other infrastructure, it's gonna be in the ROI, correct?”
“Okay, no, I understand. I'm just trying to figure it out.”
“Right, okay, so there's an initial petition, then there's the ROI, and then there's a CFD report. This is done after the ROI, right?”
“And then it says the duration of a hearing. So does that come back before the City Council? We have to have another hearing to determine if there's any protests?”
“Okay. Public hearings sometimes are done here at the City Council and sometimes it's done in the community. Which do you anticipate it would be?”
“Okay, so it could be in the community where the project is?”
“In the chamber here? Yeah. And what kind of protest do you anticipate? I'm sorry, I'm not part of the community. Protests, protests. Who possibly would protest against this?”
“Yeah, that's what I thought. If it's undeveloped land, right, the developer is the landowner. There's probably not going to be any protests because they're the ones initiating the CFD. But this would be in the cases where there's already an existing neighborhood, perhaps?”
“Okay, good to know upfront what we're possibly looking at. I don't actually anticipate protests, but you never know. And then lastly, the ordinance or formation. We actually have to pass an ordinance okaying this, and presumably that's through the City Council, right?”
“Yeah. Okay. No, it's really promising, and we've been talking a lot about this for years, so it's good to know we got two in the hopper and possibly more. So, hey, thank you very much for your presentation today. Thank you, Chair.”